Things might be finally changing. We may not be able to get out of quarantine yet, but we are gradually breaking new ground every day to go back to normal. As restrictions are loosening, the entertainment business has started to go back in business. There are precautions being made for Hollywood: people will now have to social distance on set while kissing and fight scenes will be kept at a minimum. Films can resume production on June 12, but it’s unknown what will begin. However, there is one film that immediately jumped on the opportunity. The crew even flew out to begin filming again before the official date to start. Even though people wouldn’t have preferred it to be this film, Avatar 2 has started to resume production.

Now, while it may seem unnecessary to make a sequel, there is nothing anybody can do. There are four sequels planned for the next decade. They’ve also been delayed for nearly a whole decade. Avatar 2  was supposed to be released in December in 2017, but its date was pushed back when Star Wars: The Last Jedi moved into the same weekend. Then, Disney bought all of Fox, which delayed the films yet again. So it has now become incredibly ironic that the film that has been treated as the last priority is now the first film to start up again in these times. 

It seemed like things were going great for the four sequels (or the two sequels, for now) until the world erupted into chaos. The film was in production in New Zealand and things were going steadily. However, the production was forced to shut down again. This gave a year and a half  for the editors to tackle the majority of the visual effects. During this time, the film’s producer, Jon Landau, had been giving several updates through Instagram, and he has now finally announced that the crew would  be going back to New Zealand to resume production. 

About a week ago, a photo was posted of the directors, James Cameron and Jon Landau, wearing face masks and face shields. The post said that they have to self isolate for at least 14 days due to New Zealand’s policies before they can resume filming. So this will mean production can’t start quite yet. but once they start filming again, they just need to do three more weeks of live action production. 

Now, I know that you probably rolled your eyes at the idea of there being four Avatar sequels. I’m sure you might’ve even rolled your eyes at there being even one Avatar sequel, but this is a big step for the film industry. We’ve seen many shows like Stranger Things and Atlanta shut down production, as well as films like The Batman and the new Elvis biopic with Tom Hanks. I was incredibly sad to see these projects shut down, but now things could be getting better. Avatar 2 starting again means that we can see more TV shows filming again, which means we can see more movies filming again. When you think about it, if Avatar 2 is able to start filming again, any movie can start filming again.